Strange Things Happen Again
by PippinStrange
Summary: The year is 2008, and awkward teenager Pippin Strange is dragged through magical portals to arrive in the reign of Prince Caspian, soon to be King. Pippin can't help, can't fight, nor relate, but she humorously tries to help anyway. But what is Narnia for if not to grow, change, and learn your worth? Rewrite of the Strange Things Happen In Libraries with Dr. Pepper self-insert.
1. It Started with Soda

Dearest Readers,

I decided to suddenly undertake the daunting task of re-writing my 2008 story, _Strange Things Happen in Libraries with Dr. Pepper_. I've posted a much longer-winded explanation below.

This is my chance to redeem my immature writing. Give a germ of a good idea a chance to actually be a good idea. Reach a new audience with a new story more befitting the character, the times, and who I am as an author today. Reach old readers, older fans, with a better story than I had before. I hope you'll all take this chance with me.

\- Pip

* * *

 **Chapter One - It Started with Soda**

* * *

 _..._

 _2008_

...

I pedaled my bike beneath an oppressive gray sky, rain dripping without much conviction at uneven intervals. I always imagined this is what it felt like to live in England - but Walden, Oregon, population next to nothing, was as close as I could get. Even the air smelled green; which meant I desired nothing but to sit quietly and read books.

I was seventeen and therefore didn't own a car, so I had to bike everywhere. It was means to an end; arriving with a skid through a puddle at the Walden Public Library, my favorite place in all the world. There's not much I wouldn't do for books.

I browsed through the original section of the building, still held together by framework of the darkest wood, pillared and antique. Tall, skinny gothic windows let in little light, which made this wing of the building feel ancient, and maybe a little haunted.

 _Silence lay steadily,_ I thought to myself, stepping into the aisle along the furthermost wall. Nothing but a polite cough of a patron echoed seamlessly between the shelves of the Fantasy and Mystery section.

I reached up and grabbed a worn Harper & Collins edition of _Prince Caspian_ by C.S. Lewis.

The table of contents stated this version was published in the sixties, and the Pauline Baynes illustrations were in riveting color. I slipped it in my bookbag, just for kicks and giggles. I already had a copy at home, but it was from 1997. I had received a boxed set for my seventh birthday.

But then I remembered - I had snuck a can of Dr. Pepper in my bookbag. I didn't want the can and the book inside the bag at the same time; not with the older edition, while not exactly rare, still needed a bit more care.

I quickly pulled the can out of the bag, grateful that I had remembered it was there. The can was sweating still; I had pulled it straight from the fridge not ten minutes ago at home.

I weighed the can in my hand. _Well, now I'm in a conundrum._

I couldn't just carry a can of soda around the library. There were _NO DRINKS_ signs posted everywhere. And I couldn't just _throw it away._

 _I'm seventeen. Energy from sugary drinks is my LIFE. This costs more than the tips I make at work. Oh wait - I'm a teacher's helper. I don't GET tips._

The other side of my super smart logical brain chimed in with a new suggestion; _well, you should just hide back here and drink it and then throw it in the trash bin by the back door and no one would know. Then you have a sugar rush for the bike ride home._

I glanced around. I was the only one there. No one could see me.

I snapped the tab and took a swig -

" _WHUACK!"_

I immediately started choking. It went down the wrong way in my throat.

I was hacking so loudly that it echoed. I set my soda on the ground, tried to cover my mouth with one hand, and placed the other hand on the wall to properly brace myself for a solid coughing fit.

 _I'm going to DIE! DIE, alone, in a library!_

 _How anticlimactic yet somehow entirely perfect for me._

 _Here lies Pippin Strange, sugar overload - choked to death amongst her books. We always knew this is how she would go._

My hand against the wall slipped and slid into the space between the tops of the C.S. Lewis books, and the bottom of the shelf above it. Just shy of paper cut status, my hand plunged to the back of the bookshelf.

Rather than busting my fingers painfully against the wall behind the shelf, I felt it go through it as if it were made of sand.

I coughed for the last time and finally swallowed, my throat burning painfully and my nose tingling with soda going every which way except for the right one.

I could almost feel the tingle of outdoor air against my fingertips. This particular shelf was on an outer wall, but there's no way I wouldn't feel my knuckles crack against the plaster and wood.

I tried to withdraw, my hand caught something - the edge of the bookshelf, I thought - but made the sound of a lever shifting, a groan of wood on wood.

The bookshelf swung away from me, opening like a door, my wrist still caught inside and therefore dragging me right along with it.

The view from the windows on either side of the fantasy section looked over pavement two stories below.

 _If this swings me out into the open air, I'll plummet to my death!_

 _Now, THIS is climatic. If you're Lemony Snicket._

But instead of being jerked into the impending death I expected, I was pulled, feet dragging, into sandy ground, covered with dappled sunlight from the spotty opening of a cave.

 _Huh… that's weird._

I struggled and popped my wrist free of the shelf, looking at the books with a type of hostile, accusing expression. The shelf was open just like a secret door in an old mansion, except instead of leading to another dark hall, an extra attic, or a stairwell… I was standing in a sandy inlet between two rocky walls that met in an arch overhead, barnacles crammed between the crevasses.

I glanced confusedly over my shoulder. "What the actual heck?" I exclaimed, blinking rapidly. "This is… this is…"

My Dr. Pepper was left behind, sitting on the floor all too innocently.

"Magic soda," I blurted, "If I hadn't choked, I wouldn't have gotten my arm stuck in the wall…" I suddenly clamped down, afraid of talking too loud. I didn't know where I had ended up. A magical beach somewhere - who knows what else, or who else was out here?

What if I had ended up on the shore of Isla Nublar? I would be dead in seconds. I love dinosaurs for academic reasons. Dinosaurs would love me too - for an appetizer.

I crept towards the edge of the cave opening, peering out as carefully as I could.

Outside of the arch, a wide, sandy beach stretched into a bright white light. The sound of the ocean was like the call of an instant friend, pounding at rocks and rhythmically roaring and breathing like the living monster that it is. _Man, I really have a love-hate relationship with the ocean… I'm fine just here on a beach, in a cave, in the shade._

I would never want to willingly go on a _boat._

I heard a distinct wooden groan again.

The door was starting to swing close behind me.

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on…! NO!" I panicked, whirled around, and grabbed at it.

But it was too late. It closed, and on this side of it, it was disguised as a rocky cliff face. Well, maybe not disguised, maybe just perfectly - magically - sealed.

I dug my fingers into the rocks, grasping and digging at any openings there seemed to be, but they were just natural cracks and indents of sandstone. There wasn't even a seam to indicate where the edge of the bookshelf would be, and no opening - no trippable lever to crank at, forcing the portal to the library back open.

I was stuck here.

...in Middle Earth. Isla Nublar. Neverland?

Heck, it could be the most random magic ever. Maybe nowhere fictional, even if getting sucked through a magic portal in a library would beg to differ.

Maybe I ended up on the coast of Australia for no reason at all.

 _Er, wait. Let's think about this logically._

It had to be Narnia. I had found a copy of Prince Caspian before all this nonsense started. Didn't something happen on a beach?

Like, something other than a bad sunburn?

I pulled the copy of Prince Caspian out of my bookbag, which thankfully, I still had on me.

I opened it and the pages were blank. Every single one. The beautiful illustrations…and the map, too. This was even more puzzling - more so than the plot disappearing out of the pages. But the plot should still be in my head. I've read it a gazillion and a half times.

But I remembered _nothing._ I had no idea what it was about. _I'd forgotten everything - no, no, that can't be right. I still remember the plot of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe._

I clenched my hands into fists. "Yeah, okay, God, this is HILARIOUS," I said sarcastically at the sky. "Is this so that I don't mess with C.S. Lewis's divinely inspired plot? Do you have so little faith in me that I won't screw up everything that's supposed to happen? Well, how about I MARCH over there and plant a kiss on Peter? HUH? HUH? Did ya ever think about THAT one? Did I mentioned I find him insanely attractive? You made me this way!"

I crossed my arms over my chest. Blackmailing God was probably just another thing I should add to my long list of things that I've done that I should probably not do nor attempt.

"HELLO? Any answers that would be helpful? Come ON!"

Nothing.

I ventured out of the cave, blinking in the sunlight and wishing I had brought sunglasses. I didn't need them in Oregon, and certainly not on the day that I left.

I ached for the gloom, the rain, and chill. This weather was summer, burning and warm. The sand was sifting and yellow around my plain white keds, so I slipped them off and hooked the laces around my fingers.

Just to be sure, I double checked my cellphone, flipping it open and checking the bars at the top of the tiny, one-inch screen. Zero bars, of course. No service.

Of course I didn't own a Razr v3 like everyone else, who could sometimes check the _internet_ with their phones, a feat I was still completely unfamiliar with. Even if I _could_ access the internet and email someone for help, what exactly could I do? I had deleted my MySpace account. I wouldn't have a Facebook account till I started college next year. Maybe I could email my parents? Oh… but my mom only checked her AOL account in the mornings. It was long past that.

Calling for help was probably as unlikely as it was unnecessary at this point. What could mortal man do for me in a world of magical bookshelves and poorly consumed soda spitting me out on a random beach?

"I REFUSE TO DO THIS!" I shouted into the oblivion, the wind whisking my voice away and sending it off into the sandy, grass covered embankments behind me, high enough to hide what lay behind the beach. Nothing but the rocky cliffside from which I emerged, and the green grasses wavering in the breeze, were here to bear witness to my tantrum.

"YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! IT'S EVERY FANGIRLS DREAM, I KNOW… BUT THE BOOK IS BLANK AND MY MEMORY IS ERASED!"

Still no answer.

"That's just WRONG!" I added for good measure. "I shall go on STRIKE!"

Can a Mary Sue go on strike? Or does that even count? Wouldn't I just be a self-insert by accident? I don't think I'm a Mary Sue unless I speak elvish and, like, become Mrs. Pevensie and save the world. _I mean, maybe I could save the world. I've never been given the opportunity._

"Peter, did you hear THAT?" said a voice down the slope. I followed the sound, and I could see four shapes splashing about where the white waters broke, the silhouettes of four young people having a grand time, swimming and laughing in the shallows.

"It sounds like a girl!"

"What does?"

"Didn't you hear that screaming?"

"What did you say, Ed?"

"He said, he heard a girl screaming!"

"It's coming from the cave."

"The cave we left not ten minutes ago?"

"Suppose she followed us from the train station?"

"No, it was just us four in there at first. We checked."

"Let's have a look, already! Come ON!"

"I think someone is watching us!"

"Look! She's up on the bluff!"

I lifted my hand awkwardly in a half-wave, suddenly getting a song stuck in my head. "I've got a pickle, I've got a pickle," I began to hum, slipping and sliding through the sand down the slope, aiming for the darkened, damp sand where the tide was rolling in with the late afternoon heat. "I've got a pickle, hey, hey, hey hey…."

 _No, I don't have a pickle… I am in a pickle. The absolute worst pickle ever._

I just wanted a quiet afternoon with my books, is that too much to ask?

"Hello there!" said Lucy, far too cheerfully, giving me a small wave as they approached.

Okay, so I definitely retained my memories of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, otherwise, I'd likely have no idea who she was.

"Hiii," I replied gloomily. _And this is why my sister says I'm Ross from Friends._

 _How embarrassing._

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm… uh… Pippin? Pippin Strange..." I shrugged and grinned awkwardly through my pseudonym. No one likes to blast their real name all over fan fiction, do they? There's way too much judgment out there. And Google is really a miraculous little snoop now.

"And, um, who are you?" I asked.

Susan and Peter shared a concerned look that only older, protective siblings understand.

"I'm Lucy," Lucy replied brightly and without delay, held out a hand.

I shook it. "Pleased to meet you." Without waiting, I thrust my hand at Susan.

"I'm Susan," she replied, somewhat astonished, shaking my hand.

Peter offered his hand next. "I'm Peter," I shook it and melted a little inside.

 _Okay, shut UP, hormones. No melting allowed for you._

I offered my hand to Edmund next.

"Edmund," he said, sort of shortly. Not unkindly, but too surprised to be anything but curt.

"Nice to meet you all," I said unsurely. "Uh… what a… lovely day… to traverse a seashore."

"We're on holiday," Lucy replied happily. "Or… we were. Term is supposed to be starting soon. Oh dear," she turned to her siblings. "What happens if we miss school?"

"It's springtime where _I'm_ from," I offered helpfully. "School's nearly out."

"So, how did YOU get here? You're not a…native?" Peter asked. "You are dressed like… like… well, dressed terribly strangely..."

I glanced down self-consciously as what I was wearing. A pair of ragged jeans with holes in the knees, and a men's black T-shirt with an old white logo half-scratched off and totally unreadable. My plaid overshirt was tied around my waist. I was about ten pounds overweight, and quite suddenly feeling it in all the wrong places. And insult to injury; barefoot, too.

Lucy pinched his arm, and Susan hissed, "Honestly, Peter, you don't talk to girls about what they're _wearing."_

"I'm, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Peter exclaimed quickly.

"He _meant_ you didn't come from the train station," Edmund said, one eyebrow up.

"There _is_ a train track next to the library," I answered. "I came through a… magic bookshelf, I guess. It opened like a door. And then it _sucked me in."_

"Then you were pulled in like us!" Lucy exclaimed, way too happily.

"So you're not from here either," I pushed.

"Well, not exactly," Lucy tried again. "We _were_ pulled here, a long time ago. Became Queens and Kings, and then, we went home…"

"Home where?" I asked.

"England," Susan said shortly.

I suppressed a giggle. "Then I'm from the same place you are. The planet Earth." I give Edmund a look, only because he seems to be uncharacteristically quiet. "So you became Kings and Queens of… the beach."

"Narnia," Edmund finally offered. "This place is called Narnia."

"Now, well, that's still up for debate," Susan said. "We don't exactly know for sure if we are in Narnia."

"Can't you _feel_ that it's Narnia?" Peter exclaimed, aghast.

"No, I can't," she said, a strange look on her face. "You all seem to feel some sort of magical buzz in the air telling you this was once our country where we reigned - but I don't feel that at all. And where is our castle? Wouldn't it be just around the bend?"

"Why don't we look?" Lucy took her sister's hand and tugged it forward.

"I guess I'll just stay here and _burn alive in the sun,_ your majesties," I added forlornly.

"Nonsense, you must come with us," Lucy called over her shoulder. "It wouldn't do to leave a guest of Narnia standing on the beach in this hot sun."

Susan reluctantly let Lucy pull her along the sand to their sweaters and shoes lying in little heaps under a short embankment of stiff sand. They began to collect their things.

"We ought to try heading south," Peter mumbled, more to himself than to Edmund and I.

"I can just go south with you, then?" I ask. "I don't know what's going on. And I don't know where else to go."

"I don't think so," Peter said quickly. "It

would be better if you waited here. It may not be safe. When we've found our people, we will send our knights to come for you. You'd be welcome to stay the night in the castle until we can find out how to open the…"

"Oh, come off it," said Edmund, "We're Kings of _nothing_ right now. How are we to know we'll even find Cair Paravel? It's much safer to let her tag along. We're not going to just _leave her behind."_

Peter shrugged helplessly. "I just don't understand why Aslan would send a _fifth_ person."

"There are no rules about how many Daughters of Eve can be of use to Narnia," Lucy said loudly, returning with an armload of possessions. Lucy and Susan each handed jumpers and messenger bags across to their brothers.

"Remember how WE first felt when we FIRST came here?" reminded Susan gently. "We were very _lucky_ we had Lucy to tell us what little she knew about the country… otherwise…" she stopped, and glanced at Edmund. "Our first trip might have gone very differently. And we had Mr. and Mrs. Beaver taking us in."

I agreed wholeheartedly with a nod. "You can't just…leave me here. All alone. I'm afraid of the ocean. What if the Beaver just abandoned YOU when you first arrived?" I looked at Susan with a stage-whisper. "You said _Beavers,_ right?"

"Well, yes, I did," Susan answered, "But…"

"Naturally," I replied. "Dolphins were out of the question."

Edmund and Lucy both snorted. Peter and Susan gave each other another elder-sibling mind-reading expression over their heads, which Edmund noticed and did not appreciate.

"Remember how WE first felt when we FIRST came here?" Susan repeated.

"That's very…" I began.

"We were very _lucky_ we had Lucy to tell us what little she knew about the country," Susan went on, "Otherwise…" she stopped, and glanced at Edmund.

 _What the heck is happening right now? She already said that._

"Our first trip might have gone very differently," Susan finished. "And we had Mr. and Mrs. Beaver taking us in."

"So… not dolphins," I interjected.

Lucy and Edmund laughed again, and Susan shook her head.

"Didn't I already make that joke?" I asked confusedly.

"No," they all nearly said in perfect unison.

"I'm getting a major case of _deja vu_ ," I said eerily. "Did anyone else, uh, see that? Hear that?"

"Hear what?" Edmund asked immediately, glancing around the empty beach around us.

There was nothing. A silence, but a natural silence, which meant the wind pushed and rattled the grass and the lands beyond, and waves continued to pound loudly at the shore.

Part of me wanted to jump in the water face-first, but a rational fear of sharks usually kept me from doing such things.

"Things are _weird,"_ I said helplessly, not knowing how else to explain Susan repeating herself, as if I were playing a skipping CD with too many scratches.

"That's Narnia," Lucy replied kindly. "Narnia sort of makes you feel as if you're coming into a dream that you've already had."

"I've always felt like it was waking up," Susan disagreed, with a smile.

"Well, um, okay," I said. "So if you don't want me around, can you just kill me now? I'd rather not starve to death."

"KILL you?" Peter exclaimed. "What an awful thing to say!"

"I was joking," I said quickly. "Sorry. Bad taste. I just don't want to be left behind, left wallowing in the sand to do nothing but wait and pray to Aslan that a seagull flies close enough for me to catch for dinner?"

"You know of Aslan?" Lucy exclaimed.

"How?" demanded Peter.

I held out my hands defensively. "We have Aslan where _I'm_ from, don't you?"

They glanced at each other. "No, not really," Susan said. "He is _here,_ he's Narnian."

"I think he came to this world before Narnia," Lucy corrected.

"Anyhow," Peter added, "He's lord of _Narnia,_ but you said you're from _America."_

"Oh," I said awkwardly. It would _really_ be a good idea to not tell them they're fictional and from my favorite book series. I don't want to throw them into the existential crises suffered by Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. "I mean, I can't say that Aslan is any kind of deity in America, but he's in books. I have books at home - Aslan, the great Lion, the lord of worlds that there were and have yet to be?"

"It certainly sounds as if it could be the same Aslan," Peter said.

"The Son of the Emperor Across the Sea," I continued, "King over all High Kings. Lord of the Wood. He…um…"

I was going to say he delivers Narnia from this second catastrophe, but that bit of information slipped from my head before I could fathom it. I don't know the ending of this story any more. Maybe he doesn't appear in this adventure at _all._ I wouldn't know anymore.

"That's definitely Aslan," Susan said, with some frustration. "I don't see how there's any debate on it. If she knows who Aslan is, then, I'm sure she is who she says she is."

"Well, thank you, Susan," I said, touched. I was fully prepared for her to not like me. Well, maybe she didn't, but at least she was not unkind or unfair.

"But are you loyal to him?" Peter asked.

"Yes!" I said, with every ounce of devotion I could muster. "There are stories of his death, and how he came back to life. I owe him what little belief my faith can produce in that, anyway."

"Well, I can tell you those stories are true, I witnessed them myself," Lucy said soberly.

"I don't suppose you have some idea of your purpose here?" Peter pushed.

"Enough _debating,_ Peter," Susan said sternly. "As Queen of this country, I can't just condemn a stranger to wandering in the wilderness." She turned to me. "We owe you hospitality, especially if you are loyal to Aslan."

"Hospitality?" asked Edmund with a laugh. "In what? That crumbling ruin?"

His siblings stared at him. "What?"

"Look," he pointed past their heads. "Just beyond the bluffs."

We'd come close enough to the waters now, that looking back up the beach - to the inland - allowed us a view of what lay beyond the embankments, and the grasses rippling in the wind like another green ocean. Beyond them were scrubby, element damaged trees, stunted and leaning. Past them still further, woods of cypresses and other warm-blooded trees, hiding the crumbling ruins of some sort of structure.

From what we could see, only a stone turret remained small and upright past the trees.

"Ooh, et's a cestle," I exclaimed in a thick Scottish accent.

They glanced at me.

"I mean, it looks like a castle," I said sheepishly, in my usual accent.

"Well, there's nothing to it," Peter began walking up the shoreline. "We'll have to go see for ourselves. Come on, you lot. Keep up."

His siblings followed like obedient ducklings. I stumbled after them.

When we crested the top of the sandy hill, we stopped for a moment to put our shoes back on. It took them significantly less time to put their shoes back on, but I was struggling with my laces.

Before I knew it, they had stepped into the shadows of the trees without me, and I could see their figures disappearing through the dappled green sunlight.

"Go on and receive almost certain death?" I mused to myself, tugging on my last ked with an obnoxious heave. "To die would be an awfully big adventure, right?" I shook my head. "Oh, heck no. None of that for me. Into the woods I go, but, _not_ to certain death."

"Hush," hissed Peter from ahead. "We don't know if we are without enemies."

They had stopped, and were waiting for me, just out of sight.

Still within earshot, unfortunately.

 _To go or not to go… Stay and die on the sand. Go on and die by something else that I cannot remember because the book is blank and my memory is gone. Is this how NORMAL adventurers feel?_

"Do come on," Lucy trotted back and offered her hand. "You can walk with me."

"Are you always this sweet to perfect strangers?" I asked, looking down at her. She wasn't much shorter than me, to be honest. I have always been horrifically short for my age, and she was clearly on the verge of a growth spurt.

"I'm afraid so," Lucy responded. "I've been told I am too trusting."

We followed the shapes of her siblings passing beneath of the roving lights of the sun spots, and the cool shadows cast by the branches overhead. The trees drew too close together to see what lay beyond more than a few feet.

"What I wouldn't give for a bracing cup of tea," I sighed.

"Oh, rather," Lucy agreed wholeheartedly. "That's very English of you."

I snorted, putting on a bad Cockney accent for her benefit. "And I ain't got no pocket handkerchief, either!"

Lucy laughed, and we received another _SHHHHHH_ from Peter ahead.

"There are rules about going on adventures without a hankies," I whispered.

"Really?" Lucy asked.

"Terrible bad luck to go on a quest without the means to blow your nose."

"I've never heard of that!"

"Maybe it's a States thing."

Bilbo had an easy enough start when he jetted off to join the dwarves in their mission to reclaim Erebor, but that moment of panic when he realized he had no hanky… that's how I felt now. Like I should turn back, and forget the whole thing. This was my last chance to disappear, wait in the cave for starvation or an opening cliff-face. But I had a feeling that portal was long sealed, and I would have to find a different way home - and whatever route that was, it meant following the Pevensies… to infinity, and beyond, I suppose.

Forget worrying about putting _them_ in an existential crises. I was already there! I had been magically sucked into a fantasy, a fictional world!

I could play these tiny violins all by myself.

…

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you enjoyed!_

* * *

 **Why a rewrite?**

People identified with my fictional counterpart Pippin - a nerdy weirdo with undiagnosed ADD, incredibly geeky and unlucky in social situations. That being said, the story itself is _old._ I was just starting to figure out fan fiction. There is quite a lot of troubled writing in my old story; immaturities, ignorance of the wider world around me, embarrassing asides, notes, and very non politically correct jokes that should probably have never been posted!

I was also suffering from the popular sense of humor circa 2005, where the more "random" you were, the funnier you were, and if you could make someone say, "OMG, you are SO random," you were really doing yourself no favors, but that was the Thing To Do. That shows badly in my story. I was too distracted and random to make much sense.

I was also going through a severe depression at the time and I didn't know it, and it began to leak badly into my stories, disengaging the sense of storytelling and instead using pure escapism at the expense of you, the reader.

So here we are, and I consider this an experiment. Is the world ready for a bad retelling of a self-insert nearly Mary-Sue Narnia story? Leave a review and tell me.


	2. Apples & Treasures

_Dearest Readers,_

 _If this is your first visit, I've posted an explanation below of why I am re-writing my 2008 story, Strange Things Happen in Libraries with Dr. Pepper. If this is your second visit for the long awaited chapter 2, welcome back! I hope you all had a merry New Year's Eve, and I welcome you to 2019. I can't believe we're here 11 years later from when I first wrote this. I like it when things come full circle. Happy readings!_

 _\- Pip_

* * *

 **Chapter Two - Apples & Treasures**

* * *

 _..._

 _Narnia_

 **...**

We marched up the hillside beneath the trees with unhurried care, my mind went into a panicked frenzy. There were so many ways that I could foolishly perish in a fantasy setting. Would I fall off a cliff? Ride a horse down a cliff like the Man from Snowy River? What if I was captured by a witch and beheaded? Obviously the White Witch was defeated in their last venture, so I wasn't quite as worried about that one. There's no way she could come back. It would be too predictable, too easy.

It's not like I was suddenly just going to find myself a professional sword-master either, so there was no Eragon-ing this thing, either.

"Oh my," breathed Lucy when we came out of the underbrush and into the ruins. I was breathless from going uphill for several minutes, but none of them seem to be bothered. I should really work out more…

Gigantic apple trees coiled out of the ground to hunch over the broken walls, unpruned and wild. The air even smelled like ripe apples, some of them a little too ripe, fallen on the ground. There were signs of them being mushed beneath investigative and hungry deer.

The stones were parchment-colored and littered the ground like molehills. There were few towers, and broken pillars eaten up by ivy. In the center, a crumbling dais was all that was left of what might have been the biggest, most beautiful castle in existence.

I immediately sobered. "Oh," I echoed Lucy, reaching out and running a hand along a chunk of foundation. "This is really…sad."

Suddenly, my stomach growled. Lucy glanced at me, giggled, and walked over to a gnarly old apple tree. The apples were ripe, light red and yellow, and the leaves fluttered in the breeze. She plucked one right off, inclined her head to give me permission to do the same, and walked towards the remains of a balcony looking over the beach we'd just come from. She ate her apple quietly, looking at the view.

The others were fairly doing most of the same, touching the broken walls, searching the shadows. A golden sort of solemnity seemed to settle over them - the royal family looking at something precisely like where they used to rule. That must be a weird feeling.

I tugged at an apple a few times until the stem snapped. My crunching felt just a little too loud in the silence under yellow afternoon light and the pleasantly haunted ruins. I glanced around self-consciously. Fish gotta swim, girls gotta eat…

I heard a slight thump at my feet. An apple had detached itself from the stem and fell, landing just in front of me and rolling off down the hill, following the path from where we walked up.

"Look, about earlier," Peter was suddenly at my side, picking an apple, and then turning it over in his hands like an awkward baseball. "I'm sorry. It's not kind to question girls about their looks. That was positively horrid of me. I apologize."

Thump.

I watch an apple - and I could have sworn, the same one from before - fall of the stem. It landed in the exact same spot by my toes.

"Oh, uh, uh, that's very nice of you to apologize," I stumble over a reply with just as much awkwardness. "Uh - at ease, High King. King. Majesty. Peter."

The apple rolled down the hill, following the exact path.

 _Huh. Weird._

"It's all right, Peter. Just Peter. I don't think I'm King of whatever this place is." He gestured to the closest structure, something like an old well without a tiny roof and broken pieces of courtyard around it. "Hasn't been inhabited by anything except animals for who-knows-how-long."

"I wonder who lived here," asked Lucy.

Susan picked something glinting in the sun off the ground, and examined it carefully.

"I think we did," she said softly, holding out something small and bright in her hand.

Everyone looked at her in surprise, myself included. I remembered distinctly that the Cair Paravel in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a huge palace of light and music… wasn't there a place where the mermaids could swim up to a ledge to pay homage? We weren't even close enough to the water.

 _Could be erosion,_ said my logical voice, that sounded entirely too much like some sort of British butler, probably named Jeffrey or Reginald.

This couldn't be it.

"Hey, that's mine!" Edmund said, pulling the item from her hand. "It's from my chess set!"

"Oh, chess..." I mumbled with slight sarcasm, as if chess was something I played daily. I moved closer to them so I could see the piece. It was the Knight with a single ruby eye and made of solid gold.

"Which chess set?" asked Peter.

"I didn't exactly have a gold chess set in Finchley, now, did I?" Edmund offered sensibly.

"Look, look!"

Lucy was pulling Peter towards the round stone floor that was still intact. "Imagine a glass roof," she said, pushing Peter until he was standing where she wanted him. "And remember the columns over there."

She pulled Susan up beside him, and Edmund stepped up beside her.

The four of them were standing there, looking just as regal as I always imagined they would.

I stood in front of them down in the grass, as if I was an audience watching actors on stage. I shifted nervously from foot to foot, feeling very third wheel. Or fifth, in this case. They looked at the view over my head and behind me.

"Cair Paravel," said Peter. "It can't be."

I clapped for their performance, and realizing how serious they were, immediately stopped and clasped my hands behind my back. "So," I said awkwardly, gesturing to my feet with my chin. "Is this approximately where your court jester would be standing?"

"We never had a…" Lucy began.

"Yes," Edmund answered. "You've got it."

"Is the position open by any chance?" I grinned.

"Only just recently," he replied, leaving the line-up and going to the nearest fallen-over wall, stones as large as me with flat edges, and moss growing inside the cracks.

"How could it be that the Narnians let Cair Paravel fall into ruins?" Susan asked. "Would they not have chosen a successor after we left?"

"Maybe they couldn't," Peter replied. "Maybe they… maybe our disappearance caused division, war…"

"I think there was war, all right," Edmund answered. "This didn't just happen over a few years, Cair Paravel was attacked."

"What is it?" Peter asked, following him.

Edmund's hands traced the marks. "Catapults."

 _I feel very unnecessary right now,_ I thought. _I need to pull my weight around here._

"Didn't you have lower levels?" I asked, walking over to the bottom of what used to be the tower. It was covered in vines, and the top of the tower was missing, like a game of Jenga recently ended.

The top of the turret was over the edge of a steep embankment just behind, the steep side of a hill heading down towards the sound of running water - a river emptying into the ocean but shrouded by piney trees. "Anyone?" I asked. "Basements? Cellars? That would have survived catapults, right?"

"She's right about that," Edmund scrambled over the stones to stand at my side. He joined me in pulling vines from the wall, revealing a dark arch. What was left of a wooden door was rotting and hanging off of its hinges within, and I could swear I heard the sound of wind from inside. It was likely deeper and darker than the smaller circumference outside made it appear.

"This would have been the entrance to the treasure chamber I think, if it's still there." Edmund said, tossing ripped vines off to the side.

"Treasure chamber?" I asked hopefully. "Nothing Aztec, I hope." The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy was my favorite current franchise. I had seen the third movie last year and couldn't believe it was finally over. I was really going to miss my favorite pirates on the big screen.

"No, just Narnian," Lucy smiled at me.

"Good," I sighed. "There are some Aztec gold pieces that are cursed, you know. Beneath a full moon it turns you to the living undead—a corpse, if you will."

"Please," Susan said, interjected. "That's positively horrid."

"How exciting," Lucy said politely, but I could tell she agreed with Susan.

Peter was reaching for the rusted, brassy latch of the door, but the door was so rotted it wasn't even fully attached to the hinges anymore. I slapped both hands on the wood and pushed quickly, knocking the door back into the darkness. It made a hilarious squeaking sound, groaned with moisture, and crashed against the stone wall in the darkness beyond.

"Good heavens, please don't hurt yourself," Susan exclaimed, fighting a laugh.

"You're welcome," I said with a grin.

"I had it sorted," Peter replied, looking confused and not quite committing to his own statement.

"It's a pleasure to serve your majesties," I ignored his statement and held out my arm. "After you."

"I'm sure it would have opened just fine without risking injury." Peter peered into the gaping opening. "We're at the top of the landing, there's stairs beyond. Step carefully."

"Ladies first," Lucy chirped.

"No, no," Peter said quickly. "I'm sorry, Lu, but we don't know what is down there."

"This is definitely the treasure chamber - our treasure chamber, I'm sure of it," Edmund said.

"I agree, but we don't know if anything else is down there with the treasure," Peter began tearing off a strip of his white school uniform shirt.

"Peter," Edmund said, fighting a smile, "Stop trying to make torch fuel. I have my electric one."

"Why didn't you say anything before!" laughed Peter. "Go on, then."

Edmund pulled his flashlight from his messenger bag, and tapped it in his palm a few times before pressing the button. The light penetrated the darkness as he began stepping carefully down the stairs, the beam of dusty light waving back and forth lightly.

I was the last to descend, and I had nothing to cling to, which made me nervous. I do not like heights - never have and never will.

"Light can be found in even the darkest of places," I mused out loud when I got to the bottom. "If one only remembers to turn on the light…"

"Well, there's no electricity," Susan replied. The beam of Edmund's flashlight shone in her face for a moment. "Ed," she exclaimed, raising a hand to keep from being blinded.

"I meant the torches already here," I pointed into the darkness. All their heads swiveled in that direction, but not the flashlight beam. "Edmund, isn't it?" I asked, in a pseudo British-butler voice. "Please point the light at the wall, my good sir."

Lucy giggled. Edmund pointed the beam at the old torches still sitting in their respective sconces. Peter quickly went to work dislodging one of them.

"Your accent could use some work," Susan said. Peter handed her the torch and she held it non committedly.

"My accent needs a lot of work," I responded in an imitation of her voice.

"That really wasn't all that bad," Lucy grinned.

"I don't suppose you have a match," Edmund said.

"No, no, we used flint, there has to be some old ones around here… close to the torches, too…" Peter scuffed his toe through the dust of the floor, then ran his hands along the stone wall. There was only a small patch of dirt across the stone floor lit up from the open door fourteen feet above our heads. The scattered beam of Edmund's light swinging back and forth didn't aid much.

Peter slid his hands across a very small recess in the wall, and pulled a small stone and flint out. He quickly struck the flint towards the head of the torch in Susan's hand until the sparks took shape, igniting the head with a little cough of flame and black smoke as the dust burnt off the quickest.

Susan touched the head of the torch to the next one on the wall, which Peter then removed from the sconce. They went down the walls on either side of the tunnel together, lighting as they went, giving the underground room some semblance of shape. I felt like I was at a St. Lucia celebration or something.

As the round, arched room grew lighter, they began to exclaim over the trunks lining the walls on opposing sides.

"Look!" Peter cried.

"It's all still here!" Lucy added.

"Our trunks!" Susan put her lit torch back on the wall, and rushed over to one and brushed dust off the top, revealing her name carved in a beautiful script. "Do you suppose our gifts are still in here?"

"Careful when you lift the lid," Peter urged. She promptly ignored him and opened it as quickly as she could, shoving it back and coughing and waving at the dust that erupted in a cloud.

Everyone went to their respective trunks. I rushed without thinking to Lucy's side, throwing my weight into helping her lift the lid. She was, after all, probably an adult when these trunks were initially packed. But present day leaves her still a young, small girl. Barely shorter than me, but tinier.

"Thank you," Lucy said. "Oh my! Look at it all!"

There was every kind of treasure in each trunk, and more beyond. There were other larger trunks, long enough to be coffins, and not labeled with specific names. There were precious jewels, armor, weapons, tapestries, dishes, clothes, jewelry, decorations, crowns, and ever so much more.

"Just like Christmas," I said out loud, pulling a small dagger out of one of the unlabeled ones.

When I removed it from the sheath, it slid out easily and the blade was still shiny. I don't know how it managed to do that. "May I keep this?" I asked shyly. "Not permanently. Just for my safety. Here. In the… uh… y'know. Magical land that I have no idea how to manage."

"Of course," Peter's brow furrowed. "But don't try to be a hero. You've got no training, have you?"

"Nothing."

"Best put on whatever armor you find in there," Peter added.

"Really, honestly, Peter, armor?" Lucy exclaimed.

"I don't mean the heavy suit," Peter shrugged. "Just… you know. Pippin, wasn't it?"

"Yep, that's me."

"Just help yourself to whatever you find in there that you can wear that provides you some protection, all right? We'll look out for you best we can, but we don't know if Narnia's enemies are still out there."

"Aye, aye, sire," I answered with a grin, It was colder down here in this small cavern, so I pulled my flannel shirt from around my waist and put it on, buttoning it up. Then I buckled the belt of the sheathed dagger around my waist. There wasn't a single helmet or hat I could find that would fit my round, tiny head, with short hair sticking out in all directions in the worst bobbed haircut I'd ever had in my life. I looked like the kid from The Neverending Story screaming at Atreyu across the pages of Fantasia.

I would have fit in better with the Pevensie children from the BBC Narnia.

Peter withdrew his sword from his trunk, unsheathed it, and held it towards the torchlight to read the inscription. "When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets its death… when He shakes His mane, We shall have spring again," he bit his lip, and fell quiet. "I used this blade for the first time when I killed the wolf."

He didn't seem to regret the action, but it wasn't a pleasant memory.

"Peter and the wolf," I said lightly. "Is an inspiring fairy tale for many to face their fears."

"We have that fairytale too," Lucy said.

"I've been brought up with two," I replied. "Yours, and the Russian one."

"How on earth did a story about Peter circulate in your circles in America?" Susan exclaimed.

"I don't know," I replied, "How on earth do I know anything about Aslan? People travel from world to world by magic, apparently, can you doubt a story travels from continent to continent?"

"Easily!" Susan exclaimed.

"Ooh, look!" Lucy interjected, holding up a dress. "My dress from my - my - sixteenth birthday, I think!" She held it to her shoulders, and it trailed far past her to the floor, the train resting in the dust. "Look how tall I was!"

"You were older than you are now," Susan smiled at her younger sister.

"As opposed to hundreds of years later when you're younger," Edmund said from the interior of an oversized helmet.

"Your head must have been much bigger then," I added.

"The absolute biggest," Peter shook himself out of it, sheathing his sword. "It's nice to have it down to size again."

"It's not nearly so big as yours, is it," Edmund snapped.

I giggled. "How long will it take to shrink it down? Another thousand years?"

"Has it really been that long?" Susan asked. "It seems… impossible."

Edmund gestured to the old walls.

"I realize we're standing in the ruins of what used to be our home, Ed, but it doesn't make it any less a fantastic claim," Susan added with worn patience.

"So, that means…" Lucy said softly, her smile fading as suddenly as it appeared. "That everyone we knew. Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers. They're all gone."

Silence. A horrifying one.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," I said sincerely. "For your loss." There was nothing myself or anyone else could say that would make this moment any easier for her. All friends that she once had, arriving in their distant future, meant even their descendents could be gone and erased for all we knew.

"Let's take our gifts, and change clothes," Peter advised. "I think it's time we found out what happened here."

"Here," Lucy said, handing me a gray gown, colored like smoke and black around the top. It was plain of markings, meant for traveling, but still feminine. It had small sections of sleeves, gapped and threaded, where a little bit of white fabric pushed through - sort of like a Maid Marian costume. "This should fit you."

I tugged on the modest laces on the black bodice. It reminded me of Briar Rose in Sleeping Beauty, but longer and better suited for roaming Middle Earth, following Aragorn's tracks and then quipping around rangers and getting caught off guard and all that.

"And here's a cloak form when I was younger, too - er, older than now, anyway," Lucy added, handing it to me. The folds of fabric were exceptionally heavy, black velvet lined with sheep's wool. "I saved it because I wore it to a special tournament a year and a half after our coronation."

"Only a year and a half, huh?" I chuckled. "Are you saying you don't like my trousers, or that I am too short?" I remembered at the last second to say trousers instead of pants. Pants was a rude term for underwear to the English in those days, to my understanding. The last thing I want is Susan passing out, shrieking about my indecency with a hand to her forehead.

I heard a strange, repetitive thump. I glanced at the entrance, a square of sunshine where we had entered. My eyes naturally following the shape of the steep stone stairs cutting down and turning into the treasure chamber.

Lying at the bottom of the stairs was an apple.

No one else seemed to notice.

"Um," I began uneasily.

"Do you want to travel in THOSE things?" Lucy interrupted, indicated my clothes. "Seems like it would be uncomfortable!"

"Dresses fly up," I responded, shaking my head as if I'd had a weird daydreaming sequence and needed to get out of it. "Trousers keep my legs safe and covered."

"Fair point to Pippin," Edmund said.

"I guess I'm used to it." Lucy said.

I stared at the fallen apple, a confused hum in my throat. It couldn't possibly be all the way over here, at the other end of the clearing, pushed up the steps onto the stone platform, over the threshold, and down the stairs. The doorway was uphill. And there was no sound of wind at the time.

"We don't rightly know what we'll run into," Susan pointed out. "Especially if Narnia's seat of monarchy stands at ruin now, what enemies may lie elsewhere? What if we're seen? Do you really want to stand out as a young girl in boy's clothes, or blend in as a traveler?"

I took the hint. And the dress.

And I kicked the apple away from the bottom of the steps, and heard it roll away into the darkness.

…

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you enjoyed!_

* * *

 **Review Replies**

Guest - thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words! It amazes me how many of you read the old one, and came back to give the new one a try. Hugs!

Queen of Crystallopia - thank you so much for appreciating my struggle to write in past tense. You know how hard this is for me, haha. It's easier thinking of it in terms of "writing about myself when I was much younger" than a current story to retell. Like I'm dipping into an old journal to retell what happened then :) Also it kind of freaks me out that you've never read the Narnia books! OMG! So I hope you're pleasantly surprised while you read this pseudo-version ;)

pureangel86 - Thank you so much my dear. Happy readings!

TheGrandTootah - I think I remember your penname from all those years ago! Amazing! It's like meeting up with an old friend! Thank you for joining me again. Wow. :)

Booklover400 - Thank you for your encouraging response!

WiseQueen - Yes, thank you! I realize there is not actually a color version for the year I mentioned, at least, not interior illustrations at least. For my version, I made up a more "magical" publication with illustrations in color, just to make it all the more ridiculous when Pippin gets into Narnia and finds the whole book blank along with her memories. I thought it would be all the more tragic to have those drawings disappear and make it more frustrating :)

penspot - Hello my old friend, we meet again! :) Thanks for joining me again on this little journey. You've always been so consistent with your encouragement and it's lovely to see you again over the internet ;) Also thank you so much for your kind words, I can't even handle it. You are too sweet! (hugs!)

* * *

 **Why a rewrite?**

* * *

People identified with my fictional counterpart Pippin - a nerdy weirdo with undiagnosed ADD, incredibly geeky and unlucky in social situations. That being said, the story itself is _old._ I was just starting to figure out fan fiction. There is quite a lot of troubled writing in my old story; immaturities, ignorance of the wider world around me, embarrassing asides, notes, and very non politically correct jokes that should probably have never been posted!

I was also suffering from the popular sense of humor circa 2005, where the more "random" you were, the funnier you were, and if you could make someone say, "OMG, you are SO random," you were really doing yourself no favors, but that was the Thing To Do. That shows badly in my story. I was too distracted and random to make much sense.

I was also going through a severe depression at the time and I didn't know it, and it began to leak badly into my stories, disengaging the sense of storytelling and instead using pure escapism at the expense of you, the reader.

So here we are, and I consider this an experiment. Is the world ready for a bad retelling of a self-insert nearly Mary-Sue Narnia story? Leave a review and tell me.


End file.
